


Containment Breach

by DarthFucamus



Category: Venom (Comics), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Alien Sex, Alien/Human Relationships, Dubious Consent, F/M, Light Bondage, Long Tongue, Monster sex, Monsters, Mouth Kink, Oral Sex, Symbiotic Relationship, Teratophilia, sharp teeth, tongue-fucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 00:47:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14965457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthFucamus/pseuds/DarthFucamus
Summary: Worldsfool said: “God, just gimme Venom tongue fucking my brains out. You want it, I want it, the fans want it. Maybe our girl is someone being targeted by bad people, maybe she's working on symbiote research independantly and refuses to share what she knows with the LifeFoundation. Bottom line, she's targeted, Venom finds her, protects her, in payment he gets to be nasty and she gets some 'research material.'”Dr. Imogen Walters, a xenobiologist working for the Life Foundation, is fascinated by the symbiont lifeform contained deep within the organization’s main research facility. When the alien organism breaks containment and merges with someone she knows, she finds herself forced to make a difficult decision.Which side will she choose? And, most importantly, will she get her brains tongue-fucked out?





	Containment Breach

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the result of where this prompt took me! I had a lot of fun writing this as a fandom newcomer but long-time monster lover, and though it's probably super canonically inaccurate, I hope I did the villain-cum-antihero some justice! Thanks to Worldsfool for the inspiration <3

 

Imogen needs to be careful when she speaks aloud to the thing, or the other technicians will start to think she’s crazy. She glances up from the status console in front of the 200-gallon pressurized glass tank, but none of the other white-coats are near this side of the room.

“No one else understands,” she whispers to the inky mass, swirling within the holding tank irrespective of gravity. “Talking to you is what is keeping me sane.”

The specimen, a living creature regardless of questioning skeptics, whirls and billows impassively as she finishes typing her notes. She has no doubt that it’s truly alive, despite displaying few of the conventions used to evaluate whether a thing is or is not a living biological organism; in this, she is a minority among her peers. Life Foundation has possessed it long enough that there’s no excuse for knowing next to nothing about _how_ it functions.

It is unlike anything terrestrial in every conceivable way. It is, in a word, completely alien.

“I don’t mind that you’re the quiet type, but sometimes I wish you could answer me back,” she says to it with a smile as she examines the digital microscope display. If nothing else, talking aloud to the symbiont has helped her work through her own roadblocks on more than one occasion.

“Dr. Walters, I got the results back,” a voice comes from behind her. She turns in her chair to greet Samuel, her lab assistant, a recent grad of her own alma mater’s xenobiology masters program. He offers her a manilla folder full of plastic slides and spectrum readouts. In his other hand, he squeezes a stress ball that looks like the head of a little green alien.

She thanks him for the folder and takes a look, but a few pages in, she realizes he is still standing there.

She regards the young man with a polite, but expectant smile.

He runs a hand over the black curls on top of his head and strolls over to the pressurized tank. He compresses the foam ball in his hand as he stands in front of it.

“You know, you should be careful what you say to it, Doctor,” he says with exaggerated gravity. “After six months of watching this thing, I’m starting to think it understands us.”

In the tank, the amorphous organism whirls and drifts, textures vibrating to existence on the smoky surface before smoothing; its shape is always in a state of flux. It appears as a gaseous cloud one second, a twisted wad of fabric the next, before taking on an almost fleshy, bubbling texture, and always some shade of charcoal black.

“In fact, I think it likes me,” Samuel says, flashing Imogen a quick, straight-toothed grin, before rolling his shoulders to stretch them wearily. He’s worked his butt off for this latest crunch, but he’s still in good spirits, as usual.

“Oh yeah?” she asks, leaning back and chewing on her pen as he massages the back of his neck.  “How can you tell?”

“Look at it. Clearly, it’s happy to see me. Hey, little guy,” he says, tapping the side of the tank. The specimen bounces off the inside of the glass where Samuel’s hand is, and he jolts back.

Imogen quashes a laugh as he clutches a hand over his heart.

“Just in case, maybe you should maintain the designated distance, Mr. Cowley.” She points to the caution sign affixed to the bottom of the tank.

The young man gives a nervous chuckle.

“I guess I’ve been around it too long. Sometimes I swear it’s communicating with me,” he says, scratching the shorter hair on the side of his head.

“Maybe you’ve been watching too much science-fiction,” she says, sparing a glance at the stress ball, which he is now crushing rapidly. He notices her looking and shoves it into the pocket of his lab coat.

With a tip of an invisible hat, he crosses the room to return to his station, where he chats with some of the other techs in front of the reaction chambers.

He’s a smart kid, and it’s been a pleasure working with him for the last six months, but sometimes she wonders if he’s cut out for this work. Driven and a bit idealistic, Samuel doesn’t yet know how cold the world of corporate-funded R&D can be. Once or twice, she’s caught him talking to the symbiont, too, but his conversations don’t seem as one-sided as her own. Things are always more chaotic as the next phase of a project approaches, though, she hopes the pressure isn’t getting to him.

She lets her eyes linger on the formless matter undulating in space, before returning to work.

\-------

Imogen takes off her glasses and rubs her sore eyes. It’s the Friday night before a three-day weekend, and she and Samuel are alone in the lab. The rest of the team went home a couple of hours ago.

She finishes up her lab report as soft rock music plays in the otherwise quiet room. She’d given Samuel permission to leave when the others did, but he insisted on staying. She’s not sure why, though, he’s been cleaning the same three workstations and straightening the supply drawers off the clock for an hour, now.

She shuts down her computer and gathers her things.

“I’m gonna call it a night,” she says to his turned back.

“Yeah, I just have a couple more things to do here,” he says, barely looking her way as he scrubs the steel sinks. His behavior is strange, but everything is a little tense in the labs lately. The next phase of Project Symbiote begins on Tuesday, and she can’t say she’s looking forward to it. She hasn’t felt in alignment with the foundation’s focuses for a long time; they have become increasingly militaristic when it comes to researching the organism and what it might be able to do for humankind.

“Don’t overwork yourself this weekend, Mr. Cowley, it’s meant to be a holiday. I’ll need you back bright and early Tuesday morning,” she says, making her way to the towering glass doors that lead from the laboratory to the Decontamination chamber.

“Doctor, wait,” he says, jogging after her as the automatic doors slide open. He reaches out to touch her shoulder. His hand falls short and he closes his fingers. “I was uh, hoping that I could meet with you, alone.”

She turns halfway to him, eyebrows rising.

“To what purpose, Mr. Cowley?” she teases. She knows he didn’t mean it the way it sounded, but it’s all in good fun to see him squirm a little.

“To discuss the project, I mean. Here, at the lab,” he says in a hurry, ears coloring red. “Next week, maybe during a lunch break? Or at the end of the day?”

“Of course,” she says with an easy smile. “If you’re free, I was planning to come in Monday evening, just to get some things ready for the week. Maybe around 8?”

“Yes! I mean, that’s perfect,” he says with a sigh of relief. He kneads the heels of his palms into his eyes then rubs a hand down his face. She pauses in the open doorway.

“Samuel... is everything okay?” Imogen asks, ignoring the open-door alarm tone. “If you need to talk about something other than work...” she doesn’t know how to end the sentence. Showing too much pity might be insulting, but Imogen was his age once. She knows the kind of pressure that comes with such intense, high-stakes work, and so early in a career. It’s easy for people to burn out if they aren’t careful.

His eyes look everywhere but her, and he wipes at a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. He looks like he’s about to say something, but the moment passes and a weary smile breaks through.

“Thanks, but I’m okay, really. I’ll just see you on Monday.”

If he doesn’t want to talk to her then it isn’t her place to pry. Samuel returns to the stations he was cleaning. She keeps a surreptitious eye on him as she waits for the decontamination cycle to end. Instead of working, he stands there. His back is to her but she thinks he’s staring at the covered specimen tank.

She tries not to think about it as she leaves.

\-------

Imogen arrives Monday night, greets Harold the night guard who shows her a video of his granddaughter, before making her way to the sublevel elevators. Her thoughts aren’t on the job ahead of her, but the strange email she received from Samuel earlier in the day. It hadn’t made sense, and in fact had been mildly unsettling. The subject line had read simply ‘dr, do NOT come back’ but the text body had been empty.

She’d replied asking if he’d sent it by mistake, but had received no response in the hours since.

The labs are empty, as she expects. She doesn’t notice that the cameras are all motionless and turned to the side until she steps into decontamination.

An uncomfortable feeling twists in her chest.

Harold is keeping an eye on things, chances are that the security system is offline for a reason. Some maintenance reboot or other. After all, no one is meant to be back in the labs until tomorrow morning.

She can rationalize it any way that she wants, but she can’t fight the disconcerting thoughts she has when she steps into the lab and turns on all the lights.

All it takes is some music playing to make the desolate, echoing space feel normal, and soon her mood is lifted enough that she can focus on work. It’s not the first time she’s been here alone, but her assistant’s email earlier doesn’t stray too far from her mind.

She has plenty to do, though it consists mostly of replying to work-related emails. It’s a necessary but lesser-known boring side of having a career in the sciences, and doing it now means she won’t have to do it in the morning. She is also waiting for Samuel, quite curious as to what he’d wanted to discuss after the weekend.

Eight o’clock comes and goes, and she almost doesn’t notice because she’s so wrapped up in her tasks. At eight-thirty, she gets up and checks the different sections of the lab level on her way to the supply room and sees no sign of him.

At nine, she decides that his email had been intended to cancel their meeting, perhaps accidentally sent before finishing it. For all she knows, there’s been a family emergency. She thinks about his behavior on Friday and suddenly it all makes sense. _Poor kid_ , she thinks, hoping it’s nothing too serious, though she is admittedly a little relieved to have come up with a logical explanation.

She closes everything up and prepares to leave before she thinks to check on the specimen.

At the back of the room is the specimen tank. Its cover blocks the view of its contents, locked in place over the weekend as is common practice for the last person who leaves the lab. She checks the status screens on the console as she scans her badge to deactivate the barrier, and notices that some of the readings are wrong.

The bad feeling in her chest clenches tighter. She hits the button and looks up at the tank with dread as the lead-lined cylindrical cover retracts.

The tank is empty.

She ignores the proximity warning sign and presses her face to the thick glass to peer into the base and the ceiling of the tank, in case the specimen is out of sight.

There is nothing. She checks the readings a second time before going into the logs to find out what happened. It is difficult to stay focused when she is panicking, but she works fast and steady. She is afraid that the alien organism died sometime over the weekend, that they have lost the chance to learn from something so rare and fascinating and unknowable.

She hears a door open behind her in the lab and turns in her seat to look. She sees nothing and disregards it, she’s preoccupied with the possibility that something has gone catastrophically wrong.

Life Foundation is not going to be any more happy about this than she is, though for very different reasons.

The sound of sliding papers behind her makes her turn again, more slowly. She faces an empty room.

Papers still drift to the floor from a stack that was upset from the top of one of the central counter islands. Imogen feels a spike of anger to think that someone is messing with her _now_ of all times.

“Harold?” she asks, though the notion that the guard would do something like this is ridiculous. She considers that it might be Samuel, but with the missing specimen, there is nothing about this that is funny.

“Whoever you are, this is all very amusing,” she says, forcing more steadiness than she feels, “but we have an emergency situation here and-”

A deep, baritone rumble fills the space and she stops talking. Her eyes dart around for its source and stop on a shadow that has materialized from behind the counter. She can’t make sense of it until a massive hand claps down on top of the counter.

She first sees what the _fusiform gyrus_ , the face recognition part of her brain, wants to see as eyes, oversized and milky-white as they are. They top a muscular tar-black body as it crawls onto the countertop.

The last thing she notices, counter-intuitive to the potential threat posed, is the massive, tooth-lined maw that fills the lower half of the noseless face. It drools profusely. A strange pattern of white bars on its chest stands out against the tar-black body, but her eyes return to its teeth. There are so many of them.

It moves like a slinking predator atop the counter island before dropping down on the other side and out of sight again.

She doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, though based on her split-second observations, she suspects teeth like that are not meant for grazing on the grasslands of its homeworld. Teeth like that are made to strip the meat from the bones of a cow carcass in a few seconds flat. Against her baser instinct to run, her feet are glued to the floor.

She looks to confirm that, yes, the cameras overseeing the lab are still turned in the wrong direction to see any of this. She registers the broken camera mount that she didn’t notice before, and then the black shape emerges again, this time crawling from behind the counter on the open floor.

Drool oozes from its treacherous mouth, which she swears curls into a smile when the eyes fix on her. The low rattling vocalization comes again, in short bursts.

The dark, hunched shape rises upright. And keeps rising. Bipedal, it has two distinct feet, attached to a massive torso, and from broad shoulders dangles a pair of long arms. The uncanny valley dizzies her as, for a moment, she can’t tell if this is a real thing or someone in a costume.

It’s multiple meters away from her, but she still shrinks back as the figure reaches what she assumes and hopes, is its full height.

It is not an inch less than eight feet if she had to stake her life on it, not that she wants to. She does not doubt that the creature standing before her is the specimen, though it hardly resembles the small shred of a thing that had once occupied the now empty tank. It looks, lacking a better comparison, like a _gigantic_ man whose face was pulled from a child’s nightmares.

Considering its original, unbonded form, the only conclusion is that it escaped somehow and found a host; a possibility that is equally horrifying and fascinating.

Muscles ripple and swell across its form like knots on a tree, always in flux like the unpaired organism in the tank, but what startles her the most is that it regards her with intelligence in its slimy white eyes.

“Hello,” she says.

Its mouth opens, revealing an overabundance of glistening yellow teeth, many at least as long as her little finger, that taper to needle points.

“Hello,” it says with a voice like a lion’s snarl.

Imogen wants to ask it what it wants, but all that comes out is a stuttering plea as she backs into the holding tank. _It spoke!_

“Wait!” it utters in a harsh bark, reaching for her with a hand that looks like it can encompass her entire head with some overlap.

The arm that hand is attached to shoots forward, stretching across the impossible distance between them and Imogen doesn’t so much duck as buckle to the floor. A loud crash precedes the shower of glass shards onto the floor beside her. The limb retracts from the jagged hole it smashed into the wall of the tank.

She screams and scrambles to her feet, with her sensible flats crunching on broken glass.

It _spoke_ , her feverish brain brays stupidly. As she shoves a rolling desk chair out of her way to avoid tripping, she considers that maybe she should try speaking to it again. But was the noise she heard truly speech or is it the act of a terrified mind trying to make sense of the impossible? Surely a mouth like that isn’t made for words, but for efficient and brutal acts of visceral carnage.

She moves to the side, and it mirrors her, remaining well between her and the exit. She is trapped. She scurries to one of the central workstations to put some distance between them.

“Don’t be afraid, Doctor Walters,” the hulking being says, and there’s no confusion now that what she hears is English. The quality of the timbre grabs her notice, too. It speaks with what sounds like two voices: an off-key mid-range tone that seems to come from its throat, and a thunderous growl, like massive boulders grating against one another, that comes from deep within its barrel chest.

“How do you know my name?” she asks and immediately hates that her thoughts have defaulted to some primitive line of inquiry that is ultimately pointless. Who cares how it knows her name? Ask it something that _matters_ , especially if its potentially murderous intentions limit the chance to speak to it for very long.

Its lipless mouth grins at her with teeth that interlace like a crocodile’s, extruding saliva between them.

“One of your own people set us free. _He_ was afraid of us at first, too. But thanks to us, he’s not afraid of _anything_ anymore.”

She isn’t sure if it’s the words or the voice with which it speaks them, but thirty alarm bells are going off in her head with the threat that can be taken from its statement. Her eyes are locked on it as she bumbles into bio-waste disposal trash cans and the edge of a counter. She gropes behind her blindly, knocking over a tray of empty test tubes.

“ _Us_? What happened to him?” she asks, unable to hide her alarm. The creature moves forward in the space between them, slow and smooth and almost liquid despite the heavy, boot-like sounds of its footfalls.

“We are him, now, and he is us. There is no _other_.”

This is not reassuring enough to halt her retreat. But the use of present tense suggests some point of hope that, somehow, the human that the symbiote has bonded to is still in there somewhere. And twice now, the being has used the masculine pronomial in reference to itself, so Imogen mentally adjusts her observations to include the symbiote’s perception of gender. This creature is not an “it,” but a “he.”

Even as she backs away, she absorbs as much visual detail as she can; he not only has a human shape, but that of a bodybuilder perhaps, with a broad upper body and the easy swagger of someone who knows their canned ham fists could shatter three-inch-thick pressurized glass. Or crush a human skull. Every feature on him seems adaptively predisposed to violence. But she tries not to jump to conclusions.

“Is… is he still alive?” she asks, finally coming up with a question that matters.

“Yes, we are alive, Dr. Walters,” the symbiote says with paired voices, and she can’t shake the feeling that he thinks her concerns are _funny_. She feels the first pinch of something other than fear, and it’s indignity.

“Is the host in any danger?” she asks, steadier now with concern for the unknown coworker.

“ _We_ are not in danger, we are much stronger than we were before the joining,” he says, and a flexion courses through his body in a ripple. She can swear that he has grown in stature from a few minutes ago. “Our thoughts are one. Our desires are one. We are linked, inside and out. Now we would like to know how it feels to be inside of _you._ ”

Ruddy heat floods her face and she hits the edge of a steel-surfaced counter island, jarring the computer monitor sitting on top of it.

There is no way the _completely alien_ symbiote had intended the statement to sound as suggestive as she’d taken it, but it is very difficult to tell from the perceived expression on his monstrous face. His jagged, panting, tooth-lined maw seems to be leering at her. His white jelly eyes move as easily as raindrops on a windshield but maintain a cohesive shape and position, and are narrowed at a devious angle.

“Are you… do you come in peace?” she asks, grimacing at the utter stupidity of her question, though it is perfectly valid given the circumstances. His head tilts on his thick neck and a string of drool oozes from the corner of his maw and drips to his chest

“We have known rage,” he says with a mouthful of those teeth, as though this is a minor thing and not enough to make her heart hammer in the side of her neck. “We have known hatred and hunger. But this host… is not like the others. We are a peaceful symbiote, Dr. Walters. We do not wish to harm those that would be our friends.”

She reminds herself that she can’t apply human anthropomorphization to a non-terrestrial organism, about which she realizes she knows next to nothing thanks to the foundation’s increasingly narrow-minded focus. She must stay open-minded to her observations, she must remain, above all else, a scientist. Even if it means dying as one.

“I always knew you weren’t just a weapon!” she says with a small fist-pump of triumph. “You’re an intelligent, sensitive, _feeling_ being! This is- this is groundbreaking. They’ll have to listen to me now, we can learn so much from you. I’ll need to run tests-”

“We don’t _like_ tests,” the creature says, looming under the sterile laboratory lights. He knocks a hanging lamp aside with his head, and she knows for certain he’s far taller than he was before. His body now towers to the ceiling and the height of the large laboratory is beginning to feel too low for him.

“Nothing unpleasant, I assure you! You can learn about us, too...”

She is suddenly aware of his proximity and trails off, feeling a very personal form of agitation in being cornered by a creature that is outwardly male, even one lacking in any external sexual characteristics. Textures move beneath the surface, muscles swell and retract, twitching and twisting, calling to mind the appearance of saltwater taffy being folded and stretched on a pulling machine.

“We know all we want to know about other humans. Now we want to learn about _you_ ,” the symbiote says, uttering a gritty chuckle like river stones in a sanding tumbler. “We desire to touch your body in places that will be pleasing to you.”

An uncomfortable and provocative flare of nerves between her thighs is met with the frantic flutter in her chest. There is no mistaking his meaning anymore, and Imogen hardly notices that she has climbed now fully onto the desk as though to outpace her steadily rising tension.

“I don’t understand,” she says, feeling blindly beside her for something that can be used to defend herself. Her hand closes around a stress ball shaped like the head of a little green alien. It’s useless but she squeezes it anyway for the tactile distraction it provides her. The creature is right in front of her, now.

His stretchy face pulls into a gaping chasm of teeth and pink flesh, a smile, and a massive pink tongue unravels from the depths of his throat and dangles in front of her. He has an acrid, mineral odor, like limestone and ozone. Drool seeps from the needle-sharp points of his lower array of teeth and spills down the absurdly long, tapering tongue as it sways over her.

“It is considered rude to speak about it,” he says with coarse chuckles and no apparent difficulty despite the hanging tongue, “but we don’t know why. Our host’s memories tell us that it can be very enjoyable for humans to fill one another’s body cavities repeatedly.”

She sputters, and his face contorts into an overdrawn smile and she’s sure now that he is reveling in shocking her. She draws her knees up and close to her chest. Shielded in such a superficial way, she nonetheless feels brave enough to reach out an ill-advised, trembling hand toward the honed tip of one of his protruding teeth. The symbiote lets her touch his tooth with what she can’t help but see as an impish expression.

“Is someone still in there, really?” she asks, finding the tooth to be as sharp as it looks. His long, ropy tongue swells forward and curls around her wrist and forearm, slicking her skin with his saliva before slurping it back into his mouth. Beads of sweat form on her brow as she regards her glistening forearm with spit pooling in her mouth. She swallows.

“We are _both_ here,” he answers with a throaty rumble. The dissolution of the twin vocalities is more pronounced. An immense earthy rumble and a man’s voice that, while familiar, she can’t quite place.

“What is his name?” she asks, mentally poring over the faces of men that know her and might have had access to the symbiote. Men that might bear non-platonic interest in her. The last one doesn’t narrow it down much, she’s been asked out by no less than three of her fellow scientists, the pompous, arrogant asses.

“You may call us Venom,” the creature says, leaning forward until his upper body bends over her. “Our host… is hesitant to reveal his name. We _Klyntar_ are strengthened by the emotions of our hosts. Our host’s desire for you is greater than all else. We are _invigorated_ by it. We want you to feel the strength that it gives us.”

“Are you... _propositioning_ me?” she blurts.

“Yessss,” the symbiote says, A thick, translucent gob of saliva dangles from the end of his tongue before dripping onto her bare knee. It leaves a warm trail as it slides down her leg. His breath smells like brimstone and stale, subterranean darkness.

“You _'_ re interested in human women?” she asks, stupidly. She pictures the stiff, hobbling silver robot from _The Day the Earth Stood Still_ as it carries a fainted damsel to its spaceship.

The edges of his mouth spread in a wicked grin, revealing _even more teeth_.

“Our host is attracted to _you_ in particular. We admit we find his thoughts very agreeable. We both know you from before our mergence. You are the only one that spoke to us with an understanding of our sentience; you can see that we have a consciousness. We don’t want to become a tool for the humans’ destruction.”

Her brain catches up to the fact that the symbiote has merged with someone. Someone that _knows_ her.

“Perhaps we can take this slow?” she suggests, feeling ridiculous. She doesn’t want to offend it with her apparently prudish human nature, she wants to know more about its awareness before now. When will anyone have a chance to speak to the symbiote in such a way again?

“You want to learn from us,” he says with glee which, on that face, is terrifying. “We suggest a thorough introduction to our symbiotic biology, and what it can do to yours.”

Imogen’s lab coat is suddenly too tight, and she unbuttons it as the gaping, craggy maw sends gusts of hot, moist breath against her flushed face. Her glasses fog up and she quickly wipes them off with her sleeve. She gets a grip, keeps her head. There is a human being in there somewhere! Someone she knows!

“There are other ways of learning about one another!” she says, scooting backward another couple of inches until she knocks over a spectro-analysis machine. “I’m a _scientist_ for Christ’s sake.”

“We are a scientist, too. We wish to study you and find out how you taste. It will be very,” he says, hissing the last word, “ _scientific_.”

She gets the distinct impression that she is dealing with an intergalactic pick-up artist, a perception that is so at odds with his monstrous appearance as to be nearly comical.

Imogen folds backward under his body, running out of desk space to get away. She is short of breath as his manic visage hovers above hers. He blocks out the ceiling lights and his milky eye-like structures narrow.

Who is she to argue with something that has that many teeth?

“Venom,” she says, envisioning an 80s Heavy Metal band by the same name and struggling with the inappropriate urge to laugh. Her eyes are drawn to the narrow space between their bodies and her next thought is to wonder how personal he intends to get with her ‘biology.’ The creature still lacks visible external sex organs, though. She is more than a little relieved.

“We like to hear you say our name. It makes us feel whole; it makes us feel powerful. We want to hear you say it with our tongue in your mouth.”

A dinner-plate-sized hand rises and encompasses one of her knees with fingers that span well down her thigh. His palm is warm and her skin tingles under the taut, writhing surface. Knobby knuckles flex and sinews bulge, suggesting a rigid skeleton. So nearly human, but it is the ‘nearly’ that confuses her brain so.

She opens her mouth to say something pointless, probably, like protest in the name of scientific objectivity, but the tongue jumps forward and fills the exposed cavern of her mouth. She jerks back, and it pushes forward, rolling against the roof of her mouth and soft palate. Her lips and jaw strain open as she chokes on his swelling tongue. His thick saliva is faintly salty with a metallic bite and so profuse that it spills down her chin. She gags and tries to cough. Her tongue is all but useless, and any attempt to push his out is met with the undulating surface of his wet flesh.

Unable to speak, she protests with her hands clapping against his chest. His skin is smooth and almost rubbery, but hot and _alive_. Ropy musculature squirms beneath her palm and she yanks her hands back as though his flesh is a hot brand. She focuses instead on expelling the alien organ from her mouth.

The tongue retreats just as quickly as it invaded, leaving her coughing and sputtering, with thick, watery saliva dripping down her neck. She falls onto her back, knocking aside a small metal shelf of sterile plastic containers and labels.

She gawks at him before she thinks to clap her hand over her own mouth in fear of further intrusions.

“We observe that your mouth is small,” Venom says, slavering, looming, “and aren’t sure how much we can fit into it. We will need to make further observations.”

“Wait a fucking minute!” Imogen says, in startled outrage when the tongue begins to re-emerge, wiping her slobbery face on the back of her arm. “You can’t just-- we _must_ maintain… I have to breathe, for God’s sake!”

The first massive hand is joined by another, which encompasses her other knee.

“We understand, you are afraid. But you have nothing to fear from us, we are not a _bad_ symbiote… we do not want to harm you.”

“I’m not _afraid_ of you,” she says, glaring and wiping her steamed lenses on her lab coat before realizing that it is saturated with his saliva and all but useless for cleaning. “But I cannot condone the flagrant misuse of the scientific method! If we are to learn from one another, we must be rational about it.”

“We _are_ rational,” Venom says, conceding, before offering a stretched-out smirk edged in jagged, interlaced teeth. “We will be methodical as we explore every part of you… we will be precise in finding the places that make you _want_ to open to us…”

“That’s not how science works!” she splutters.

Imogen shakes, her heart pounds in her throat and she runs her hand over her face, which is still damp from her nervous perspiration and his unsolicited ‘kiss.’ Her glasses are smudged beyond salvation, and she wipes her spit-slicked face on the back of her sleeve. What does it mean that she is tempted to give him what he wants? And more, what does it mean that she is almost as curious?

“We will even pretend that we aren’t enjoying it if you want… we cannot promise that you will be able to do the same.”

The two hands push against her knees, opening them.

“We promise to be gentle,” Venom says, unfurling his ropy tongue so that it hangs over the gap between her knees. The tip flicks toward her once and it’s as though he’d physically touched her cunt with it the way her muscles clench. “When we _devour_ you.”

His maw spreads and she chokes on her breath when the two hands wrap completely around her knees. He pulls her forward with frightening ease, bunching her fawn-beige skirt around the tops of her thighs. By the way the air hits the crotch of her cotton briefs, she knows that she is just as slick with moisture as Venom’s pendulous, swaying tongue.

She wonders if it can fill her cunt like it filled her mouth, squirming and hot and wet.

The lewd thought renders her unable to conjure any further protestations. She loses all sense of clinical detachment as she stares at the pebbly surface of his bubblegum-pink tongue and imagines the phantom touch of it against her clit.

Puffs of steamy breath heat her skin in gusts. It smells like raw ore beneath a boiling hot spring and cools her moistened flesh for maddening moments in between when he inhales.

Venom’s voices come together in a resonant growl and he snaps his tongue forward, mashing her panty crotch into the cleft of her vulva. Imogen gasps vocally as a flash of heat makes every muscle in her pelvis clench in a state of sweet tension. Just as quickly he slurps it back into his mouth. Imogen’s hips give an involuntary jerk toward the retreating appendage. Her physical arousal aches enough to drive the shameful impulse, and she groans, carding her nails back through her messy hair.

Venom’s chesty rattle sounds almost like purring as he peers at her with sharp, gooey eyes.

“Do you trust us now?” Venom asks.

Imogen can’t form words, either way, so she answers by letting him pry her thighs open with no attempt to stop him. He bunches her skirt around her waist with his massive palms and plucks at the thin fabric covering her sodden pussy with one talon-like black nail.

He pulls the elastic leg hole taut before slicing through it as easily as fabric scissors. His eyes coalesce into manic opalescent blobs, and with the muscles bunching around his thick neck, Venom’s jaw opens so wide she can see down the pink, fleshy tunnel of his throat where the base of his knobby tongue emerges.

She has a moment to fear the danger so close to a delicate part of her anatomy before his tongue surges forward, webbed to his teeth in clear, viscous slime, and pelts against the wet flesh between her thighs. Surprise forces a noise from her, and soon she is writhing as the folded, ropy organ slides over her vulva. It throbs and snakes along the entirety of her pussy.

She stutters an exclamation as the moist, rough surface of his tongue feels exactly how she imagined, but so much smoother, and strains her hips forward for more of it.

He rattles in waves, and she can hear the two distinct voices gasping in ecstatic unison as he slurps her effusive arousal directly from her delicate, heated skin.

His laving tongue flings slobber as he devours the wet slit between her legs with a giddy snarl. In his enthusiasm, his face draws nearer, bringing those teeth with it. She thinks he is going to bite her when they close, dimpling the soft flesh of her belly, but at the same moment, the ropy, prehensile organ in his mouth rolls over her clit with deliberate intent. She utters a startled moan as terror and desire whirl together in a chaotic storm in her chest.

She braces her hands against the desk behind her for leverage to push harder into him but her button-up shirt slips over the desk’s cold metal surface and there isn’t enough friction to hold her. Her elbow knocks the spectro-analyzer to the floor with a heavy clatter, damaging a couple hundred dollars’ worth of equipment. The computer’s keyboard slides over the edge of the desk when struck by an errant fist and dangles from its cord.

He slurps his tongue back into his maw, and her hips lurch after the retreating organ like a needy lover. She realizes that the punctuated coughing noise he makes is laughter and humiliation colors her lust-drunk haze.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she curses, as the horrible realization of what is happening bursts like a fetid bubble to the surface of her mind. Yet her cunt clenches with the biological need for _more_.

" _We_ wish to take it slow, Dr. Walters, but we note your enthusiasm.” She wants to protest that that’s not what she meant, but his mouth gapes and that tongue flops forward. Somehow there is more of it every time she sees it.

Fuck it, she thinks, damning herself to the most depraved level of hell. She scoots to the end of the desk and whimpers a pathetic plea. He must understand human behavior well enough, because he resumes lapping at her tender flesh, thick throat working with the effort, as she bites her bottom lip in guilty satisfaction.

It slides against her tingling pussy, sluicing in the juices of her arousal and his spit. He drags it over her clit, the entire ceaseless length of it, and it’s unlike anything she’s ever felt before. It’s so intense she is consumed by it and can’t speak words, just tremulous vocalizations as her body devolves into urgent straining.

She squirms, struggling to open her legs wider as the heat and pressure build and spread from her throbbing pussy to the arches of her feet.

The tar-black hands wrap about her thighs and lift her lower body completely off the table so that _tongue_ has unfettered access to all the tender real estate of her nethers.

She tries to say something, though she isn’t sure what. All that comes out is a husky moan as the symbiote’s viscous drool oozes and drips everywhere that lashing tongue smears it, seeping between her ass cheeks toward her lower back, and dripping to the floor. There must be a large puddle of it beneath them by now.

His hands pull her forward more until her ass hangs over the floor. She balances with her thighs in his massive hands and her upper back atop the desk. Unbalanced, she grapples for something to hold onto and finds the unanchored computer monitor.

Something firm bobs against her middle back, something warm and hard that almost supports her weight. As she surrenders her pussy to the surface of Venom’s tongue, she does some quick mental calculations and concludes that: it is either an additional limb that has sprouted from his abdomen, or the symbiote possesses gargantuan male genitalia.

In her arousal-fevered mind, the thought of being ripped apart by whatever this alien organism calls a cock sends her into a taut-muscled fervor. Bliss swells and spills over, radiating up her spine and down to her knees.

She cums against his mouth, writhing, and her flailing hand bashes into the computer monitor and sends it over the side of the desk. It slams against the side with a plastic snap before the cord pulls loose and sends it crashing to the floor.

The tongue continues to lavish her through the convulsions until suddenly it’s too much. Her sounds of pleasure turn into frantic wails of painful overstimulation, and her body writhes to get away from the sensations, spine bending, legs kicking out to break free of the grip of his hands.

The hands supporting her thighs let go. Her entire sweaty, trembling body melts from the desk to the floor, as limp as a slinky.

Panting, she rights her glasses, which have been once more knocked askew by the activities, and confronts the toothy, grinning maw of the symbiote lowered to her face level. His absurd tongue waggles and drips rivulets of saliva and pussy juice onto the floor and her bare legs. She can feel a puddle of wetness seeping into her disheveled clothing, confirming the general messiness of his oral attentions.

“We like the way you taste, we like it very much,” the symbiote says, milky eyes widening with its smile, which stretches open farther than should be possible. If there is indeed a human being beneath the writhing, tarry surface, she can’t make sense of how they fit together.

She pants as she tries to right herself. The short slit on the side of her skirt is torn well into the seam, but she tugs it down over her sopping wet crotch.

“I can’t believe I let that happen,” she says aloud, too bewildered to keep her thoughts to herself. “What if I’m contaminated? Oh, _God._ ”

Her pussy throbs, still stricken with the occasional aftershock.

She’s going to panic, she feels it rising as a scream trapped in her throat, but an immense hand pets down the side of her face, raking sharp nails through her hair and against her scalp lightly enough to tingle. She closes her eyes, despite everything, soothed by the caresses of his strangely gentle touch.

“Do not be afraid, Dr. Walters. We don’t want to _merge_ with you,” he says, uttering a barked, husky laugh. Another hand encircles her upper arm, and the scale of it dwarfs her. “But we do want to play with you more... Our host has the most entertaining dreams-”

Venom throws his head back on his neck, choking off his words halfway. He snarls with corded muscles straining, and the outburst sends her bolting upright.

“Come on, man! She doesn’t need to know that!” says twin voices, but the man’s is more prominent this time. She scoots back into the front of the work table, feet slipping in a syrupy puddle of fluids, drawer knobs digging into her back.

“She is an attractive human female,” the granite-thunder voice booms, and Venom’s face turns back down toward her. Even now, faced with those gnashing teeth, slickness leaks between her thighs, both remnants of her orgasm and fresh arousal. “Don’t deny it, we have wanted her for a very long time, but we have been too _weak_ until now to even try.”

She can’t make sense of what he is saying, but she feels like she’s overhearing a conversation between a diverging Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and she is the cause of their separation.

“I can’t-” the human voice rises again before choking off, and the creature’s head rolls on his thick, tendinous neck. “We can’t drag her into this!”

It takes her a moment but she recognizes the man’s voice, now.

 _“Samuel?”_ she says, shocked. “Your host is my _lab assistant?_ ”

Venom’s body shudders as though battered by unseen winds. Imogen shrinks back as shivers course through her own body. The movement on the surface of his skin grows more pronounced, now resembling an oily puddle filled with squirming eels.

The black rubbery flesh of his head ripples, pulses, and retreats in wriggling filaments until a crown of tight black curls emerges. The hairstyle, trimmed close at the sides, is distinctive enough that she recognizes him, even before she sees his thick eyebrows and his large, amber-brown eyes. The black substance retreats down his neck to the tops of his thin shoulders.

“Imogen, let me explain,” Samuel blurts, his words running together. “I didn’t know this would happen. All I wanted was to learn about the symbiote, but without the foundation’s restrictions.”

His angular face, normally attractive and at the very least healthy, is covered in a thin sheen of sweat. Imogen tries not to look at the writhing texture of the parasite clinging to his body, she only looks at the parts of Samuel she can see.

“What were you thinking?!” she demands, and Samuel’s shoulders hunch forward. She tries to ignore that her nipples are hard and painfully chilled under the damp material of her blouse. She can imagine that they are fully visible. “You had no way of knowing how it… _he_ would react to you! Why would you take such a risk? You have your whole career, your whole life ahead of you, Samuel!”

He is on the verge of reaching for her, but she flinches in her shock and he pulls back. He crab-walks back a few steps and raises his hands in surrender. His body is still coated in the writhing, living skin, but its shape is no longer the hulking mass it had once been. It has diminished to resemble more closely the softer figure of the young man’s _real_ body. Lean, but slightly out of shape.

“I just wanted-” he starts, but his words choke off when tendrils of black snake up his neck and consume the lower part of his face. The material sprouts proto-teeth as it climbs with no regards to functionality or purpose. When next he speaks, he does so with both voices.

“We just wanted to impress you, Dr. Walters.”

Samuel shakes his head from side to side as though he is flinging water away and the symbiote’s vine-like boundary retreats. He rocks back on his haunches with his elbows perched on his knees and rakes his fingers, clad in the alien skin, over his thick hair. His tortured growl comes in a voice that is completely human.

“There aren’t any secrets between us, he… the symbiote knows everything I know, everything about me.”

Imogen tries not to think about the security implications to that, except to be grateful that it hadn’t happened to someone with more clearance.

“Can you take it off?” she is scared to say anything more overt; the creature is listening. “Are… are you trapped?”

“It’s not like that, I swear,” he says, fingers twitching as he presses his hands to his temples. His small human tongue licks spit from his full, trembling lips. “I’ve never felt this way before in my life, Dr. Walters, it feels _so good._ ”

The last word comes out as a groan and his round eyes tip back under his lids, and Imogen is more unsettled by the young man’s uncharacteristic lack of composure than anything else. What is happening to him? What is the symbiote _doing_ to him? And what, if anything, has it done to her?

“Samuel, please, talk to me,” she says, hoping to keep him talking instead of Venom. She wants to comfort him but doesn’t move from her place.

“Have you ever wanted something so badly, for so long, that you can’t think straight?” he says in a choked voice. Venom’s voice is barely a murmur. “What if, one day, you were given a chance to _reach_ for it. Wouldn’t you at least try? That’s what happened to me! This feeling is incredible. When I’m together with Venom, _anything is possible._ ”

“What are you saying? This is insane!” Imogen says, searching for the seam where the symbiote’s matter meets Samuel’s skin and finding no clear separation. The one seems to melt into the other. His feverish eyes pinch into slits and his words come out in a tumble.

“Venom is right. Everything he says is true. I wanted to impress you,” Samuel says and his voice is alone, now. He curls his arms over his head and rocks where he crouches.

She starts to say his name but he interrupts her.

“Dr. Walters, I’m... in love with you,” he says, and his sweaty, flushed face looks to be on the verge of tears. Imogen gasps and touches her hand to her mouth. His behavior toward her over the last six months comes rushing into her head, and she can’t believe how blind she’d been to it. Sam leans forward, leaning on one arm, and she can’t help but eyeball the hooked talons that sprout from his fingertips.

“I’ve been in love with you since we first started working together. I can’t stop thinking about you, but I never meant to act on it. I respect you too much to…” he trails off, clenching his eyes and clawing his hands over his face. “Oh God, what have I done? I never wanted it to happen this way.”

 _Love_ , he says. Suddenly she wonders how much of Samuel was behind the tongue that had whipped her into a frenzy. She is having trouble conjuring professional propriety when her pulse still ticks in her clit and her body still feels like a warm puddle of sentient goo, but she tries.

“Samuel, it’s normal to have feelings for a coworker at some point in our lives, but there is a good reason we don’t give in to those desires,” she says, gesturing at the entirety of him. She can’t believe she’s having this discussion _now_. This should have been handled by HR a long time ago.

“I know, I know, I’m so sorry,” Samuel says, shaking his head. He can’t even look at her. “I didn’t know this would happen. I just wanted to find out more, so that I could tell you. I thought, if I could learn something new about the nature of the specimen, about its sentience, it would make you happy.”

He’s always seemed so young to her; at 25 he is almost a decade her junior, after all. He is attractive enough, very much so actually, but she realizes she’s always dismissed him as a kid. His feelings are apparently strong enough to drive him to violate laboratory safety regulations and procedures, and to put his own safety at great risk by interacting with an unknown entity outside of a controlled environment. All to impress her.

“You didn’t need to do that,” she says, reaching forward to grasp his hand. “You should have followed procedure, stuck with the plan. You could have _talked_ to me, at least. We could have figured it out together.”

He looks down at her hand, and before her eyes, the arm ripples and the hand that had been facing palm-down ripples and pulses. Under her touch bones shift and sinews wind, and suddenly the hand has flipped its orientation without moving. Long fingers that had faced down a moment ago curl up over her hand and squeeze and the sight is deeply jarring. Her stomach turns. A deep rumble comes from inside his chest.

Samuel speaks, and now Venom’s voice rises up in chorus.

“It would have been impossible to follow procedure. The Foundation doesn’t give a shit about the symbiont’s sentience. And now that I know, I don’t regret what I did. Not now. I have learned so much more in joining than would have ever been possible. There is so much I can show you, now. So much we have to talk about!”

“Oh, Samuel,” she says, pity mingling with the bewilderment of the predicament she is now in. “You’ve put yourself in so much danger! I’m not just talking about your personal risk with the symbiote-”

A tumorous black mass swallows Samuel’s face and forms Venom’s head. To her horror, she can still see his brown, blinking eyes in the bottom of Venom’s partially-formed throat for a moment.

“Our host isn’t in any danger, Dr. Walters,” comes Venom’s gravelly voice with relish and a grinchy smile. “I will protect him for as long as he needsme.”

“Pardon me, _Venom_ , but we don’t know how this 'joining' is affecting both of you. Nothing can be gained from continued symbiosis, without steps taken to measure the countless variables involved-”

The creature surges over her and she forgets where she was going with that.

“We have no other choice,” Venom hisses, both beings now speaking together as one. “It was a matter of our _survival_.”

“Even so,” she says, her voice dropping as she regards the beastly face above her. She feels strangely calm despite her galloping heartbeat. “You are both in grave danger, and now I am too. You’ve breached containment, and I doubt they will let me just _walk_ out of here now after you... after we…”

The symbiote’s tongue lolls out of his maw and hangs heavily over her. Its surface is pink and pebbled with irregular taste buds, and glistening wet.

“We need your help. You _must_ help us,” Venom says, planting his hands on the ground and leaning his hulking body over hers. “Doesn’t this host mean something to you? We know he was an insufficient mate, before. But you have seen what we are capable of now, what we can do for you. We will make it worth your while,” he says, grimacing as ropy drool oozes between his teeth.

Imogen doesn’t know what to say, but her legs slide apart to make room for his knees. His palms move to her knees.

“Let us show you,” he says in a guttural rattle that sinks into her lower spine like warm honey.

His hands grasp her thighs, once more shoving up her skirt, and, to her alarm, he begins to rise to his feet with her legs held firmly in his grip.

Even if she would have otherwise intended to deter him, she has no leverage and finds it hard to speak upside down. She dangles from his hold on her thighs, and the stress position sends blood rushing to her head and her joints popping not unpleasantly. She grunts in impotent protest, flailing her arms for something to hold onto.

Long, strong fingers find her upper arms, encircle them, and lift, drawing her body horizontally level. Now that he is supporting her completely, her blood pressure returns to normal, and she realizes that there are _far too many hands_ holding her up.

An additional pair has sprouted from somewhere on the creature’s body, and now more than before Imogen is faced with her helplessness in the face of this unknown entity. Her body is not only being supported by his many arms, suspending her above the floor at level with his towering head, but she is being held in place by them.

Her primate brain sees the teeth and the immobilizing hold and thinks she is about to die. Her human brain sees the tongue and mouth poised between her open thighs and arousal throbs to life right where his breath is hitting her. She is overcome with violent trembling because she has no idea what he is going to do.

“Wait, what are you-“

Venom’s many hands bring her exposed cunt to his mouth and the first few licks reignite her nerves like wildfire.

She already came once, but the situation has intensified immeasurably since then, as has her physical need to surrender.

“Oh God this can’t be happening,” she moans, jerking her pelvis uselessly against the onslaught. It’s simultaneously the worst and best sex-fever-dream, and the ghost of Samuel’s face is ever present in her mind as she dances between looking at the ceiling, looking at Venom’s devouring mouth, and clenching her eyes shut. All that does is intensify the sensations of what he is doing between her legs.

Her dangling toes curl when she feels something push into her cunt. Its rough, and small, at first. With the attention being paid to her clit she can almost ignore it as it darts into her shallowly.

It doesn’t maintain this pace, though. The tip of his tongue pushes deeper, and the girth of it gets wider.

She utters a fearful, tremulous moan when she thinks about how long the organ is in its entirety. She can’t do anything else, the pressure is building again, an inexorable climb to another physiological release, which her limited mortal body craves with all of its being. She bucks, and another hand, or something like it, creeps up her back. A sharp point scrapes along her spine, splitting the fabric of her shirt and exposing her sweat and slobber-dampened skin to the air. She utters a cry of protest when she feels it slice through the back of her expensive bra as easily as butter. Her protest devolves into throaty groaning when his tongue delves deep into her cunt, stretching her around it to the point of sweet pain.

His tongue pumps into her clenched opening. Slickened by her arousal and the profusely slippery sputum coating her entire lower body, the muscular organ moves at a blur, generating heat with such alacrity that she hardly knows what she is doing anymore when she struggles, not to get away, but to bring her groin closer toward his treacherous carnivorous smile and glistening flesh.

There is enough tongue for a significant overflow and the excess folds roll forward to nudge her clitoris, and back to undulate over her anus. Even if she _wanted_ to stop him from slurping over her puckered hole, she can’t say anything but a stuttering slew of _Oh God, Oh Fuck_ s.

She crashes into her second orgasm with a strained grunt, overcome with washes of molten, prickling heat. He must have learned from the first one, because he waits until her cunt stops squeezing him, until the tension bleeds from her body and she hangs limply in his four hands, before continuing. Venom breathes growls of fresh relish when she makes a pitiful whimper in response to his ceaseless stimulation.

This can’t be happening, she thinks, though it has less meaning this time. What does it matter if this is real or a fever dream of inconceivable sexual satisfaction?

The finger on her back flattens against her skin until it feels like a whole, warm hand, but it doesn’t stop spreading and growing. It splits wide across the span of her upper back, separating skin and fabric like a vine growing in timelapse. She doesn’t have a word for whatever shape the limb is taking, it feels like her upper back is nestled in the crotch of a forking tree branch, but one that has a pulse. The forked halves snake around the sides of her ribs and up, pushing fabric and underwire aside. By the time she realizes he’s going for her breasts, the delicious tension in every muscle has mounted to the point that her nipples ache to be touched and she arches her back to shove them harder against this part of him.

Venom snarls as his limb, tentacles, really, latch onto her breasts and roll over them. Shifting textures ripple over her nipples and squeeze. Imogen squirms and writhes in paroxysms of ecstasy as the creature manipulates her body to delirium.

The third orgasm is exponentially more intense than the last, and Imogen forgets herself in a flash of white-hot, all-encompassing oblivion.

She screams, and some part of him reaches to her open mouth and fills it with hot, pulsing flesh, choking off her sound.

Full-body convulsions are held at bay by his many hands and limbs. She gets control over her voice and he uncovers her mouth. She gasps, sucking in breaths. His tongue retreats from her cunt, leaving her feeling empty, sore, and thoroughly drained.

She is aware of being lowered to the floor.

Her vision is blurry, and she realizes that her glasses have fallen off completely at some point. She spots the thick black frames against the white vinyl tile floor and crawls drunkenly to them, picking them up from the puddle of assorted fluids. The lenses are fractured and she puts them on with a shaky hand and looks up to confront the shadow looming over her. Three additional arms, or arm-like limbs, retreat into Venom’s torso like liquid, leaving the usual number.

He is smiling, and his tongue hangs, calling to mind a panting dog.

“We enjoyed that, yes?” he asks.

She examines the tattered remains of her clothing. There is no mistake, she appears as though she’s been ravished by a pack of wild bears. She tugs her bunched skirt back down, but her shirt and bra are ruined.

“Yes,” she says. She wants to take a long, hot bath. She needs a glass of wine or three. And she wants him to do that to her again.

“We can do it again,” he says as if knowing her thoughts, lowering into a hunched crouch. He’s still taller than her, in this position.

“No, thank you,” she says, holding a couple of fingers to her neck to feel her pulse. Racing.

“Very well… then we await your answer,” he says in a tremendous baritone and there is an edge to the statement.

Imogen can barely move from where she sits, her clothes are a ripped, slobber-soaked mess, her glasses frame is bent and won’t sit on her face right, but her mind is working.

“You know what they will do to us if we do not escape,” Venom says. Imogen casts Venom’s toothy mouth a guilty look, as though she might see Samuel’s face hiding in there and judging her. He had no idea where the project was leading, what the higher-ups wanted to do with the knowledge they gained.

“Yes, I know,” she says, dropping her eyes and holding her arms over her stomach.

“Our host knows now, too,” Venom says and Imogen takes a deep, pained breath. What must they think? Especially Venom, from his perspective. “They were going to use us as a weapon. They were planning to force us to propagate, to create an army of Klyntar symbiotes.”

“I… didn’t want that,” Imogen says, meeting the alien’s milky white eyes. “I wanted nothing to do with it, I just wanted to learn about you.”

“We know you are not like the others. Join us as our ally. Help us stop them from corrupting us. Help us escape.”

She doesn’t know how she is going to do it, but she knows that this is the only ethical way to fix the wrongs committed by her employer. There is no putting this genie back into the lamp now that it has been freed from its prison.

“Alright… I’ll get you out of here,” she says, rubbing her eyes in weary disbelief. Venom utters a sharp snarling hiss and the flesh on his torso bubbles like a tar pit before smoothing. Though she has really just met him, she thinks it is an expression of triumph.

She adds quickly, “but I don’t know how we’re going squeeze you past the night guard.”

No sooner does she speak than the massive body begins to shrink. Samuel’s bare hands and feet emerge first, absorbing the black substance like a sponge, and his head follows. Soon, he stands there, naked as the day he was born. Imogen casts her eyes to the ceiling as he covers himself with the keyboard that is dangling against the side of the desk. It’s too late, though, she managed to get a solid glimpse of his semi-erect cock. It’s only fair after what he and his alien symbiote did with her.

“Venom, man, come on,” Samuel pleads to the air, his body curled into as much of a ball as he can manage while still standing. Imogen sees the Star Trek symbol tattooed above his right nipple and keeps her amusement to herself.

A disembodied chuckle answers, like sandpaper over wet rock, followed by a noise like slurping oatmeal through a straw. Within seconds, Samuel is standing there in black jeans, tee shirt, and shoes. It looks real enough upon a cursory glance, but a closer look shows that the fabric-like texture isn’t fully static.

“Convenient,” she says dryly, still holding her ruined shirt closed over her front. Samuel helps her up with a sheepish look on his face.

“I ah… I didn’t mean…”

She waves him off. No point in modesty, now. Their relationship has long transcended professional detachment and is now veering toward 'breach of ethics' territory.

“I have a spare set of gym clothes in my locker," she says, hurrying to gather her things. "We need to get the fuck out of here.”

She leaves with Samuel trailing behind, wondering at the sight that will greet the first staff to arrive in the morning.

\-------

They need her bioscan-ID in order to leave the facility’s secure underground labs; it is clear without being explicitly stated that Samuel would be unable to do this alone as long as he is joined with Venom. She wonders how long Samuel has been inside the facility like this. Luckily, the system is limited. As long as she is present, they are able to leave together. She doubts this security loophole will be so neglected after this.

Harold the night guard glances up long enough to acknowledge her and Samuel and wish her a good evening before he turns back to the videos he was watching on his phone, apparently unconcerned with the fact that she is leaving in completely different clothes than what she arrived in, and that someone else is now with her.

It was far too easy, she thinks, casting a sideways glance at Samuel, who follows her with a nervous, stiff gait to the parking lot.

She wonders where she will go first, but her thoughts are interrupted when a sound like mountains smashing into one another comes from behind. She can’t turn to look before a solid wave of scalding air collides with her back. The force of it sends her flying toward the cars in the parking lot.

She sees the steel pole of the parking lot light approach at a neck-snapping angle and she knows she is about to die.

Something swallows up the light and the sound, and Imogen’s hurtling momentum meets a soft, springy surface very unlike concrete or steel. She tumbles, blind and deaf, enveloped in a cradling shell until gravity stops flipping.

The shell retreats.

Stunned, confused, Imogen barely recognizes that she is sitting upright and on the ground. She hears the roaring sound of a massive blaze and the alarms, and opens her eyes.

Venom, fully symbiote, is on all fours facing away. His tongue hangs from his manic grin. Before him is the towering, smoking inferno of what used to be Life Foundations R & D facility.

Imogen can’t tear her eyes away from the hellish sight. Chunks of steel and concrete, some as large as a motorcycle, are scattered about the area and thick, billowing smoke pours from the fiery ruin into the night sky.

Venom turns to her, melting back into Samuel, and takes her hand in his.

She thinks he says “Dr, we need to go,” but isn’t sure. She lets him pull her to her feet and helps her walk, staggering, to her car.

“For God’s sake, Samuel, just call me Imogen,” she says, staggering sideways as the world spins.

“Okay, Imogen,” he says, a little breathless. A chunk of concrete has landed on her roof, denting it, but Samuel sweeps it aside as though it weighs nothing. He helps her into the passenger seat of the car and secures her seatbelt.

There is ash in his hair. She looks down at her shaking palms, which are as colorless as a corpse’s. Her bag is at her feet, and she catches a flash of neon green; the stress ball managed to escape the destruction somehow. Samuel climbs into the driver’s seat with her keys, starts the car, and tears out of the parking lot.

When her shock starts to retreat, she gazes at the tense-faced young man beside her. He spares her a harried glance as he swerves around scattered and singed building materials toward the exit.

“That doesn't apply to him, though,” she says with narrowed eyes. “ _Venom_ can refer to me by my title.”

She needs to differentiate between them somehow, even if she isn’t sure it’s possible. Samuel gives her a grin that is a little too wild to be only coming from him.

“We’ll protect you, Dr. Walters,” say the dual voices, one mid-range and human, the other deep and vast as an underground cave chamber.

Imogen doesn’t say anything. Her eyes linger on Samuel as he turns onto the main road, before she looks back at the destruction in the rearview. At least one soul was lost to the explosion. She can hear sirens in the distance but they will be too late to save Harold.

She doesn’t doubt that Venom means what he says, for now. What he can’t tell her, is who is going to protect her from him?

**Author's Note:**

> I am so stoked for this movie to come out, now. I knew next to nothing about the character before getting this prompt, and reading up on the history of Venom, and his complex and changeable personality, gave me some serious HYPE. This will have to satisfy me, for now.
> 
> Thanks to Worldsfool for the prompt, and thanks to FancyLadySnackCakes for her help in brainstorming this little piece of depravity and catching some errors!
> 
> If you enjoyed it, feel free to tip your writer! I accept payment in the form of Kudoses and comments!


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